I recently had an exchange with a friend where I noted our views were dependent on the trust one has in the public official making the statements. His response was along the lines that trust is an antiquated concept. I like these exchanges as it gives me something to think about. Indeed, is trust an antiquated concept?
As a military professional, I have a very hard time with the idea trust has gone out of fashion. During my career, the lives of the men and women I served with, and who I led lived, and occasionally died, based on the trust we had in each other, and the commanders who directed us. The entirety of the combat arms of this nation is built on the expectation of trust. We will do the right thing, and if we don’t, we will be ostracized and removed.
In the elite forces, like the US Navy’s SEALs, the US Army’s Special Forces/Rangers, and the US Air Force’s Special Tactics the whole concept of trust is taken to the highest level, but even the average soldier, sailor, Marine, and airman build their career and their lives on trusting those to their left and right. As a flyer, we place our trust in the maintainers who inspect and repair the aircraft prior to our flight. For us trust is absolute, without it we are nothing.
Now we turn to politics and society outside the military. Is it true in our society and within our political system that trust is an antiquated concept?
While it is true, that we’ve become polarized in our political divisions, at the end of the day the individuals of society do, in fact, place their trust in the words and deeds of the political factions they support. If they did not our elections would have participation rates well below 50%. As it stands, we don’t do a great job turning out to vote, but our historical average remains above that threshold.
When a political party calls for civic outrage based solely on the rhetoric of the party, we still see that outrage turned into action on the streets, based on shared ideals and the belief that outrage will affect change as promised by the politicians. That alone confirms the trust of party loyalists that their political representatives know what they are doing.
Doing business in today’s world is almost always a matter of trust. We trust the food we buy to be safe to eat. The medicines we take to improve our health, and the products we buy to be delivered and work as promised. Unfortunately, political involvement and agendas have begun to erode that trust, but without it can our system survive? I believe for most of us the majority of that trust in the “system” remains, while trust in some “experts” may be waning.
It seems to me that trust is the essential ingredient in our educational system. We send our children off to school with the trust the educators will do their best to impart the essential knowledge as they prepare them to enter society. Unfortunately, this does appear to be one area where the idea of trust has been violated and now parents are coming to grips with the agendas that are driving the school systems and the teachers to impart more than the essential skills of academics with their own social mores, rather than leave that to the parents.
What the shutdown of our society during the recent pandemic has shown many parents is the subversive nature of the professional educators as they transition from strictly the role of educator to social indoctrination. Perhaps this is a long-standing approach, but its impacts became most evident with the rise of social media like Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok. Now, as parents seek to regain control of what their children’s education should look like, there is an emerging battleground between professional educators and the family. I am not involved enough to know with certainty, but as an outsider, it would seem the activists on both sides are driving this confrontation. Unfortunately, it will be the children who are most hurt by this loss of trust.
Perhaps, my friend who comes from this educational background bases his belief that trust is an antiquated concept on that conflict. If so, that is unfortunate.
But then as I consider his words, I am struck by the loss of trust we have developed in our judicial system where equality under the law and protection of society from the wolves who would feed on it is essential. We see much in the news to drive us to outrage regardless of our political beliefs so perhaps my friend is right, especially when we talk about a nation where respect for the law is the underpinning of our entire society.
I guess time will tell if trust is really as antiquated as my friend believes.
